VIVAS IN DEO The telling of his story was to Basil like waking from a state of imperfect consciousness in which dream and reality had indistinguishably mingled.

Since the fight with the brigands he had never been himself; the fever in his blood made him incapable of wonted thought or action; restored to health, he looked back upon those days with such an alien sense that he could scarce believe he had done the things he related.

Only now did their move in him a natural horror when he thought of the death of Marcian, a natural distress when he remembered his bearing to Veranilda.

Only now could he see in the light of reason all that had happened between his talk with Sagaris at Aesernia and his riding away with Venantius from the villa on the island.

As he unfolded the story, he marvelled at himself, and was overcome with woe.
There needed not the words of the holy abbot to show him how blindly he had acted.